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Posted on 07/23/2004 12:02:34 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
If you’ve paid any attention to the abortion debate, you’ve heard some variant of an already old chestnut: “Anti-choicers want all these babies born, but they don’t want to adopt them, help the mothers, do social work or pay higher taxes. They’re part of the problem.” That accusation may come from rhetorical expedience or simple ignorance, but those who make it have never met Sherrie Bicksler.
Bicksler is the director of the Freeport Pregnancy Center, and caring for disadvantaged mothers and children is her full-time job. The Center’s staff (mostly volunteers) provides assistance, prayer and listening ears to hundreds of clients each year. They have personal contact with between 175 and 200 clients per month, including 35-40 new clients. They offer free and confidential pregnancy tests and can refer a client to other agencies for any need, from education to domestic violence counseling.
The aim is to show God’s love, to be, as Bicksler says, “Jesus with skin on” in the client’s hour of crisis. Donations are accepted “as from God,” she observes, “and He always makes sure it goes to someone who needs it." For example, five times in the last four years she’s seen Center supporters completely equip and furnish the apartments of formerly homeless clients with donated items. She credits the success to the Center’s dedicated prayer team.
Yet this special place isn’t unique. The Center is a member of CareNet, an organization of over 700 pregnancy centers across the United States and Canada. Each is a place where a woman backed into a corner can find kindness and real solutions. It’s not unique in our area, where a Yahoo search on “abortion alternatives” brings up 16 results within 50 miles. Strangely, a search on “Planned Parenthood soup kitchens” returned no results.
Pregnancy centers aren’t the only area pro-lifers impact. I look around my church, and I see mentors, volunteers for NHS and the school district, people who preach in nursing homes and jails. If all the pro-lifers in town gave up on helping “the least of these,” how would it all get done? Pro-lifers also put their parenting where their mouth is and adopt. A member of our county Right to Life Committee wrote, “We are not, by any means, wealthy financially; but the love and joy our adopted child has brought into our life makes us rich indeed. We asked for a special needs child; we found the only special need the child had was the need for a loving family.”
Even if pro-lifers weren’t devoting themselves to making lives better, would they be such hypocrites? If you don’t have to be a civil rights activist to be outraged about a lynching, why would you have to adopt a handicapped child before you could legitimately object to children’s lives being snuffed out? It’s thick irony that the vast majority of pro-choicers are political liberals. For decades, they’ve told us that we need ever more bloated government programs to take care of every need of the downtrodden. Yet when some of us want to put a stop to the killing of small children, they demand to know why we haven’t handled all the problems they said the state would cure.
So why does the myth of the uninvolved pro-lifer exist? Sadly, such wordplay is all that is left for the advocates of abortion. In the age of ultrasound, one can’t really argue that a fetus isn’t a baby. It’s easier to say that your opponents are hypocrites who should shut up, but like so many other pro-abortion arguments, it collapses immediately upon contact with facts.
I won’t pretend supporters of abortion never do anything to help the community. Still, it strikes me that community service is often prescribed as punishment for non-violent criminals. Since abortion is violent, but not technically criminal, perhaps area pro-aborts could throw in a few extra hours each week to atone for the blood this vaunted “right” has cost us. Roll up your sleeves, folks: there are about 4,000 abortions per day, and you’re already 40,000,000 kids behind.
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Nice job.
Excellent article..................Bump
This just galls me!
All the volunteers in my area are, in the main, church goers, pro-life, and very active with hands-on support and money.
The left is always tied up with some political goal that gives nothing.
well written, bttt
later
Wow! Great job! I'll bet you did good with this article!
Excellent!!!
Go get 'em Mr. Gorilla!!!
Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
well said sir.
teeman
remember, evil (satan) ALWAYS accuses the 'true' (god) of what HE HIMSELF is guilty of! heard of "thou shalt NOT surely die"? ( = "god lied")
YES! Keep the truth resounding throughout the land.
Thanks for all the pings you send me cp!
Great Job Silverback
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